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Three months after they had to put their dog Snickers down due to kidney problems a Charlotte family got a call from their local animal control office.

“Are you missing a dog?” the voice on the phone asked.

Emotionally speaking, they were — but John Dixon knew the caller had no way of knowing that, and suspected that’s not what the caller meant.

“No, not that I know of,” Dixon answered.

The animal control office representative then mentioned a name: “Marvin?”

Dixon said they’d had a dog named Marvin 10 years ago, but gave it to another family.

The office told Dixon that the dog had been picked up and identified based on a microchip — one placed in Marvin more than 10 years ago when he belonged to the Dixons, after he bit a girl at a baseball game.

The biting incident and Marvin’s rambunctious behavior were what led the Dixons — painful as it was — to find a new home for the Australian shepherd.

That he was back and in need of a home — so soon after they’d lost Snickers — struck the Dixons as fate.

“Don’t you kill that dog,” John Dixon said he told the animal shelter.

The family paid a $10 fee to adopt Marvin and brought him home.

Dixon says Marvin is still playful, but much calmer now that he’s older.

Once home, even after 10 years, Marvin seemed to remember their house and even knew which door to use.

Dixon recalled it wasn’t easy giving him up then. His son and daughter, 6 and 8 at the time, both cried.

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, who some critics say comes across as “harsh,” showed her softer side this week by singing about her Yorkshire terrier, Snickers, during an appearance on “The Tonight Show.”

Fiorina, who many believe made the strongest showing in last week’s GOP debate, told Jimmy Fallon she often writes songs about her dogs, and volunteered to sing one of them.

The performance cracked Fallon up, but then what doesn’t?

Fiorina has two Yorkshire terriers, Snickers and Max. She performed one of what she said were four verses of a song she wrote about Snick, the lazier of the two, sung to the tune of “Rock Around the Clock.”

My name’s Snick and I’m lazy
Please don’t take a walk with me
I’d rather stay right here at home instead
I want to lie back down in my nice warm bed
My name’s Snick and you’re gonna have to carry me

It should be noted that Fiorina, in addition to humanizing herself, and showing she has a decent singing voice, also looked pretty good — contrary to what fellow candidate Donald Trump criticized as her un-electable face.

“Look at that face!” Trump was quoted as saying about Fiorina in an interview with Rolling Stone. “Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?”

Trump later said he was talking not about Fiorina’s appearance, but her “persona.”

When asked about Trump’s comments in last week’s debate, Fiorina offered a strong rebuke: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

Kind of makes you wonder why, between the two, or for that matter among the entire pack of Republican candidates, Fiorina is the one that gets characterized as harsh.

I feel bad for what happened to Snickers the cat. But to be brutally honest, I’m having a hard time working up much sympathy for her owner.

Snickers died last week, shortly after arrival at the Hartford airport aboard Delta Flight 738.

Airline officials had promised Heather Lombardi, who had purchased the cat from a breeder in Utah and was having her delivered, that the cargo hold the cat would travel in was climate controlled.

If you can’t guess what happened next, here’s some additional information:

Snickers was 11 weeks old.

Snickers was a Sphynx, or hairless cat.

It is winter, and a particularly cold one.

Once a plane lands, the cargo area is depressurized, and that climate control stuff doesn’t apply anymore.

Lombardi sent out an email blast to tell the world about “the worst tragedy I have ever personally experienced” — not to gain pity, or money, or, we’d hope, bolster her odds in a lawsuit. Instead, she says, she wanted to inform the world of the dangers of shipping a cat, by air, in winter.

With her two children, Lombardi arrived at the airport and was told to wait in the baggage area. Fifty minutes passed after the flight landed, the delay in unloading baggage being caused at least partly by a cargo hold latch that was stuck, she was told.

“I wasn’t incredibly alarmed … I figured she would be fine as long as she wasn’t outdoors,” wrote Lombardi, who paid $290 to transport Snickers. Outdoors, it was 7 degrees.

Upon being handed the crate, Lombardi opened it and pulled Snickers out:

“The kitten was ICE cold, limp, and unresponsive. I IMMEDIATELY put her into my coat, grabbed my kids by the hands & ran out of the airport to get her into my car & cranked up the heat putting all vents on her as I rubbed her trying to warm her up. She couldn’t lift or control any limbs, her breathing was labored, she had a blank stare in her eyes, and she let out a meow. As if to say help me — please. We rushed her to the emergency vet clinic, but to my utter devastation, on the drive, she let out a blood curdling cry & went completely limp …”

Ten minutes after handing the apparently lifeless cat to the vet, Lombardi was informed that Snickers was indeed dead.

“Her last hour of life was spent frozen & unable to escape. I am so utterly devastated — I cannot express to anyone how this feels. I am so sad for her, her little 11 week life lost for no reason. A tragedy that could have been prevented if the airline had valued her little promising life.”

Delta told her it is investigating, but, she said, “the bottom line is that they can’t bring her back to me or my family, there is nothing they can say or do to make this whole. We don’t want a new kitten; we fell in love with HER. She was our new child & there is nothing that can be done to bring her home to us. Snickers lost her life unnecessarily … Value life everyone, I have just experienced something I pray no one else has too. Don’t let Snickers lost life be in vain, I pray you guys read this & maybe another animals life won’t be lost to the cold & lonely Delta Cargo holds.”

Reading over her summary of events, what stuns me most is that a customer would even consider having an 11-week-old hairless cat transported by air in the dead of winter. That the breeder would permit it is surprising as well. That Delta signed off on it is equally shocking.

So, much as we regret Snickers’ passing, we, unlike Lombardi, wouldn’t aim our anger solely at Delta. There appear to be plenty of humans to share the blame, including the one who — though her subsequent warning not to ship animals when it’s below 30 degrees is valid — probably should have done a little more research and used a little more common sense before having her new hairless cat placed on a plane.

And we have to wonder a little bit, too — coldhearted as it may be at her time of clearly anguishing loss — why, any allergies aside, someone would opt for a pricey, high-maintenance novelty pet from the other side of the country when hundreds of cats are in the Hartford area’s animal shelters, waiting for homes.

Heather Lombardi responds:

“… I first wanted to thank you for bringing attention to what happened to Snickers. Knowledge is power & even if you don’t agree with my actions & poor decision, not everyone knows or understands the risks of placing your pets in a climate controlled cargo hold. I myself was guilty of that. I do not place blame solely on Delta, my lack of knowledge & belief that travel was safe for animals in this weather was the obvious reason she was on the flight. It’s why I decided to share her story. She died due to my lack of knowledge & an obvious service failure on Delta’s behalf. I can’t control Delta, their practices or policies, what I can control is how I handle the situation. I choose to raise awareness, and I thank you for helping with that.”